Friday, May 26, 2023

FOX NEWS--Jennifer Griffin's Sources--STORYBOOK JOURNALISM?

   
05 Sept 2020---


   “And some of these sources that you cite are general officers. I was born in khaki diapers. I have spent my entire life around the military. And I have never known any general officers to hide behind stars.”  Robert Wilke, VA Secretary

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     Exclusive photo from David Bauder (AP) report in the White Plains Journal News, caption
     "This photo, from television video, supplied by Fox News, shows Shepard Smith and Fox New's Jerusalem-based correspondent Jennifer Griffin ducking as a rocket attack occurs while they are reporting live from Kiryat Shmona on the Fox News Channel on July 17" 
(25 July 2006, Page 33)



   Incline Village, Nev. (EOC)--The fine line between accurate reporting and just plain bunk is now being challenged in the blowback of the failed Jeff Goldberg The Atlantic article regarding the commander-in-chief's remarks that may have been fabricated. That fine line is based on using real people with real names in a story as opposed to "anonymous" officials who hide behind  news reporters. A particular is Jennifer Griffin, Fox News, with the big title of "national security correspondent." Sticking to her story today, the reporter said, in a Bruce Herring Deadline article;
     "Griffin also stood by the credibility of her sources, noting that they are not anonymous to her and that she doubts 'they are anonymous to the president,' as well. She went on to explain that people have been reluctant to step forward and speak about the President, after seeing how he 'destroyed' people who have crossed him and how he has 'weaponized' Twitter." (1)
Taken at face value, Griffin may be correct, a lot of the president's employees haven't had the bromance they wanted with him. As for weaponizing Twitter, the president is a lightweight compared to many who have been given the boot by the social media entity for posting tweets that violated to the letter the rules of engagement. The president's conduct hasn't been the greatest over there, but the link between his destruction of people as related to the Twitter account is a stretch of the imagination. No boss likes to be criticized and surely Griffin's boss is no exception. 
     In the aftermath of the liquidation in early January of the Iranian Quds General Qassem Soleimani, syndicated columnist Marc Theissen quoted Griffin in the Spokane Spokesman-Review;
     "According to Fox News' Jennifer Griffin the Pentagon "believes there was a political decision taken in Tehran NOT to kill Americans." (2) 
That was in reference to retaliation for the Soleimani assassination. Turned out, the missile attack on the bases in Iraq did, in fact, produce many US military casualties, though none deadly. Griffin's sources were wrong. By January 24, the non-lethal WIA count stood at 34, mostly due to concussions (3)
A few months prior to that, yet another Goldberg, Jonah, syndicated columnist reporting in the Lancaster, PA , LNP cited Griffin in relation to the president and the Kurds;
     "According to reporting by Jennifer Griffin of Fox News...(the president) 'went off script from what his [national] security team gave him as talking points for his phone conversation with the Turkish president.' " (4)
Here again, no mention of just who comprised that "[national] security team." Her sources not just at the Pentagon, but inside the White House Team Alpha are faceless and nameless. 


     Going back even further to the Benghazi embassy debacle on  September 11, 2012, just two months before the election, Griffin again surfaces , reported by Debra Saunders in the Lancaster PA Intelligencer-Journal on November 6;
     "Fox News has been all over this story. Correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that sources told her that a CIA team --including Tyrone Woods, who also died in Benghazi--had requested military backup during the attack but was told to 'stand down.' The CIA dismissed the story as 'inaccurate.' " (5)
Again, as before, the only verification of the coverup angle was from  "sources told her." It was one of the first stories to run with the title "Benghazi coverup?" It is difficult to say whether the entire conspiracy theory of a Benghazi coverup was true or fabricated, but at least this might help to locate the source of the allegation. Currently, that very theory is working against Joe Biden's bid for the presidency in November, when it comes to his role and as Saunders alleged in her article, "What did Obama know? When did he know it?" Could the same inquiry be made of Griffin? What did she know? Who told her, if anybody?

     Going back even  further, when Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were kidnapped by some hitherto unheard of Islamic terror group, Fox correspondent Jennifer Griffin just happened to be on the scene;


     " '...met with warlords. We met with head of Hamas, Fatah, Al Aqsa Brigade, popular resistance committees. Islamic Jihad offered to help us.' At one point, Griffin and others were taken to a tense meeting with top members of various Palestinian groups." (6)  
Not only has the gifted correspondent been able to hide her elusive top officials in the American government all these years without questioning their veracity, but was able to finagle her kidnapped colleagues away from Palestinian thugs at the behest of  Middle East power brokers. Is there anything this lady cannot do?     
The answer to that, possibly. Can she convince a skeptical nation that she hasn't been making up these stories, living a Pollyanna life of make believe where anybody and everybody caters to her with inside scoops while in defiance of the basic tenants of Associated Press Stylebook cautious and careful warnings on use of anonymous sources?   Again, possibly.

The Atlantic's Trump report: We should know the sources of a story this important

The headline over the bombshell story in The Atlantic magazine exploded on the media and political worlds like a grenade going off in a battle - the kind of headline that would certainly give the president's detractors yet one more reason to detest the man: "Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are 'Losers' and 'Suckers' " The story ran under the byline of Jeffrey Goldberg, the magazine's editor-in chief, a journalist who is no fan of Donald Trump.


Cited
2.)  Soleimani, The Spokesman-Review, 12 Jan 2020, Page e2
4.) Kurds, Lancaster LNP, 16 Oct 2019, Page A14. 
5.) Benghazi, Lancaster Intelligencer-Jorunal, 06 Nov 2012, Page 9


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